John Andersen

As an experienced IT manager I have been using Windows logon scripts for many years to simplify managing my workstations and user sign ins. Creating logon scripts for your Windows domain is a fairly straight forward process that can really simplify your management issues. Logon scripts tend to be used primarily for mapping network drivers and printers but ultimately you can run just about any process from a logon script.

The primary command you will make use of when building a log in script is the “net” command. This command can perform many different tasks, to get an idea simply pull up a command line and type in “net /?” without the quotes and press the enter key. You will be greeted by a whole host of sub-commands that can be used with net. In fact there are twenty one different sub commands, but for now we will only focus on the more pertinent ones.

The main sub-command used with net will be use. Use allows you to connect to shares on servers and other workstations and map them as local drives. This will allow your users to store files on the network very easily without them needing to know which server or servers the actual files are stored on, making network management issues very easy. I should mention that the downside to mapping network drives does cause a lot of network chatter since the drives are continually connected. An alternative for low bandwidth situations such as remote offices connecting to centralized servers would be creating a shortcut which only connects when the user actually opens it up.

Another one of my favorite net sub commands is send. Send allows you to send a message to any or all systems on the entire network or Windows domain, it even allows you to pick which computer or domain. Now when you have an emergency or any kind of problem that needs the immediate attention of all your users on the network you can send them a simple little pop-up window with a message on there computer screen. Since the net send command pops up a window on the screen it draws the users immediate attention instead of sending them an email that they may not notice right away.

Once you have mastered these two commands then start exploring other options such as time, view or statistics. The time command used to be a valuable tool for synchronizing time across a domain back in the Windows NT days before network time protocol services where built in. Net view is a nifty command that will allow you to display shares on a computer, network or domain. You should also keep in mind that you can pipe the results into text files for advanced data file parsing or scripting tasks.

Finally if you need a deeper explanation of a specific net sub command simply type in net help. You will find that just this only little command used in conjunction with domain login scripts attached to your user accounts can really simplify many network management headaches.

John Andersen is an information technology manager and the author of the Turbo Windows Scripts home study course. For more information visit his website at www.roboticit.com